Dharmakaya - the ever present Body of Enlightenment
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When we think about Mahayāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism, probably one of the most important things we have to understand is about its roots:
Often we can meet some people having doubts, whether Mahayāna Buddhism is a real
and authentic
Buddhism, do they follow properly the teachings and words of Buddha Śākyamuni, or have they gone astray.
Who are all those light forms – Buddhas and Bodhisattvas they use to speak and how and when Buddha has given mantras.
Here we have to understand what actually we understand with word Buddha. Buddha means Enlightened.
When we speak about Buddha Śākyamuni, we call him Buddha because his mind was enlightened.
Enlightened mind means a state of mind which is completely free from all sufferings, all 5 aggregates, all obscuration and afflictions, 3 poisons of the mind – confusion, greed and anger, free from all conditional states, from influence of cause and effect.
Buddha Śākyamuni used to refer to it as an Emptiness, that which is never born and will never die:
That is behind all concepts and teachings and conditions. Which can be described only describing what it is not. What is not attached to a certain place or even a person.
In fact Buddha Śākyamuni has been telling he is not the only Buddha. He is the fourth Buddha of our age and he predicted there are thousand Buddhas to come.
He did not intend to claim any authority rights on Enlightenment.
Śākyamuni didn’t think he had discovered something new, he had only re-discovered what has always been there – a Light of Emptiness – what can be our true refuge:
It is called Dharmakāya – the Body of Truth (dharma – reality, truth; kāya – the body). Dharmakāya is the Body of Enlightenment, which is characterised by emptiness and purity.
When Mahayāna Buddhists think about Buddha (including as a refuge) – they think about eternally present enlightened Dharmakāya,
not exactly the historical figure of Buddha Śākyamuni, who was living in India 2550 years ago, born to his mother Mayādevī, reached enlightenment under Bodhi tree and turned the Dharma Wheel in Varanasi.
But this very Dharmakāya is usually represented by Buddha Śākyamuni, seen as the emanation or manifestation of an eternal truth, which have always been there and manifest in different ways and persons to help sentient beings.
But even if the historical Buddha Śākyamuni was not there, or may be at some age there wouldn’t be any Buddhas or people would be unable to understand Buddhist teachings – the truth of Dharmatā , the ultimate reality would still be there always.
Yes, indeed, Buddhism is considered a teaching on impermanence of everything but it wouldn’t be complete without the other part – …composite, consisting of 5 aggregates.
But Emptiness of Dharmakāya is not a thing or entity.
Tibetan text Yeshe Ting Dzog says about it:
before we had any idea of Buddhas or sentient beings, there was a state that was absolutely pure and uncorrupted, as well as cognizant or self-aware.
This state –Dharmakāya - is the state of non-differentiation, and it is the basis or matrix for any experience.
Whether one is a Buddha or a being thrown into the turmoil of a hell realm, the presence of the substratum or matrix of Dharmakāya is the same, and this undifferentiated state is the basic source for all of our conscious experiences.
Dharmakāya emptiness doesn't differ from Buddha nature
Gampopa in his fundamental treatise The Jewel Ornament of Liberation argument that all beings have a Buddha nature because of 3 reasons:
- Because all beings have a nature of Dharmakāya. Because the nature of Dharmakāya is emptiness and the nature of all beings is emptiness, because there is no real
self
. - Because the absolute nature is inseparable from the absolute state. Because the nature of all beings is emptiness and the nature of Buddha is emptiness, it is considered they have the same nature, which is impossible to separate.
- Because all beings have a potential.